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Escape From the National Mall Almost Ruins a Perfect Day

January 21, 2009 at 9:01 AM | by | Comment (1)

There were a lot of questions about whether DC could handle yesterday's oversized Presidential Inauguration, and the general consensus on the ground is twofold: The event itself went off with few hitches, but getting out of there was an effing warzone.

Those on the edges of the National Mall escaped quickly after Obama's speech, but revelers in the central section were surprised to find that virtually all routes to exit had already been sealed off.

Yours truly tried to jump from the swearing-in over to the parade and found there was no way anyone was allowed to exit north of the Mall, tickets or not. Then everyone wandered South of the Mall in the most haphazard, frustrating exit we've seen from any event ever.

No Metros were running, police officers had no idea where people were expected to exit, and everyone basically wandered back and forth block-to-block aimlessly looking for some way to get the heck out of there.

We've talked to several different folks who spent as long as three hours figuring out how to get off the Mall, and we ended up having to walk all the way around the Capitol to Northeast DC to find any form of transportation (and that was a very lucky cab get).

How were your escapes from Inauguration? Other hellish tales? Did anyone figure out how to do it quickly? Sound off in comments below.

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Hellish indeed

Metro seemed to work more or less ok. We skipped our intended stop due to overcrowding in the station forcing us to walk under the Mall on I395 but that wasn't such a big deal. The problem we encountered in the Metro was just getting out - they insisted on everyone using their metro cards - and those things are tricky even if you live in DC - tourists put them in backwards, upside down etc. Total freak show which meant it took forever to just leave the station. They should have just charged everyone $3 or whatever on the way in and opened the turnstiles full bore on the way out.
hudson crossing on January 22, 2009 at 9:27 AM #Permalink

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